by Emilia Finn
I hate it. I hate everything about this place, and Mom and I argued more this past year than ever before. She’s doing everything in her power to enable me to take care of business when I’m a grown woman, and to do that, she has to become the bad guy in my story.
I understand her whys. But I don’t like them.
“How are you coping, Biggie?” I squeeze his hand as we round another corner and head toward the street that leads straight to Main. It’s dinnertime, and we have one hour left until they have to head to the airport. “It’s not too late to undo this.”
I know I’m being cruel.
“You’re breaking my heart, honey.” He pulls me closer, so I wrap my arms around his stomach and rest my face on his chest. He’s so broad and strong. He’s bigger than Ben, but considering Ben is only eighteen and still growing, it’s understandable that big, bad Aiden Kincaid is still the biggest guy in this sandbox. “I would steal you away and bring you home if I could. You know that, right? We’re not trying to hurt you.”
“I know you’re not.” I bring a hand up to swipe over my face. I’m not crying, but it feels like I am. “I’m just…” I draw in a breath. “I’m pouting hard, and it feels like no one gets it.”
“I get it.”
He slows his steps, so Mom and my sisters continue ahead. Mom senses our movements and casts a glance over her shoulder, but she sees us. She sees the grief we share, so she swallows and begs for forgiveness with her eyes, then she takes my sisters’ hands and crosses the street to give us privacy.
Biggie was my boyfriend before he was hers.
The whole world knows it. I declared him mine when I was only a toddler, months before he and my mom met and decided they kind of loved each other too.
“Hey.” He stops our steps completely and grabs my jaw to bring my eyes up. “I love you, Smalls. You were my first love.”
“I know.” I hate the lump that forms in my throat.
“We’re being parents now, and we’re making the hard choices in hopes they make the rest of your life easier. We’re doing the very best we can.”
“I know that too.”
“Please don’t ask me to choose your side over your mom’s. It would break my heart.”
“I won’t.” I step into his embrace and snuggle in for a soul-cleansing hug. It goes on for minutes and makes it so our hearts slow to beat in sync. “I’m not trying to guilt-trip you. I’m just sad, and I don’t know how to handle it.”
“You’re strong, baby. You’re the Kincaid trailblazer. I know it’s lonely when you’re at the front of the line and all alone, but you have a family back home. We’re all cheering you on, and in four years, you come home and you never have to leave again.”
“Then I go pro.”
He nods and gives me a little extra squeeze. “Then you go pro. I promised you forever ago that I would be your cornerman. I haven’t forgotten my promise.”
“You’ll take care of Mac, right?” I wipe my face on his shirt. “He’s fragile.”
“I swear I will.”
“He wants to fight, Biggie. Don’t tell him no. Help him work up to it. Bean is getting him there, but she needs your help too.”
“Honey…” His eyes blaze with hurt. “He can’t.”
“He can!” I argue. “And he will. We’ll approach the board when it’s time, and we’ll put forward a case about why he can fight. We’ll send three champion Kincaids at them, and every other fighter I know. We’ll convince them that he can do it. And when they let him in, we’ll all be his cornermen. He needs us.”
“I love you,” he murmurs. “And I love how passionate you are about this. It’s insane, but I believe that, somehow, you’ll make this work.”
“I’ve never not gotten my way before.” I pull back and give him my most convincing smile. “Mac Blair will be a champion. And when he is, you’ll wish you’d put money on him too.”
He smiles and presses a kiss to my forehead. “I believe you.”
“Also, help Bean. She’s like a mother hen for that boy. She’s aging, and she hasn’t even graduated high school yet.”
“Babe… you are going to school, not to war. You don’t have to list your wishes right now. We can talk on the phone tomorrow, and make this conversation far less intense.”
“Don’t be mean to Benny, okay?”
And that’s why he tried to stop this conversation. Because he knew where it was going. “I don’t feel entirely charitable toward that kid, Smalls. He looks at you the way no man should look at my baby girl. It bothers me.”
“He’s going to ask me out on a date at Christmas.” I push, push, push, because that’s who I am. “And I’m probably gonna kiss him again.” I feel the heat fill my cheeks. “I liked it.”
“Stop.” He pushes me away, only to snap me back and under his arm so we can step off the sidewalk and cross the road to follow Mom. “I love you, and normally we can share everything. But this is one of those lines I said I would never draw. I can’t talk to you about this. Like, I’m literally incapable of continuing this conversation right now.”
“Just don’t be mean to him, okay? He’s going to struggle being there all alone, and when you get back, he’s gonna be nervous. He’ll want to stick close to you, but far enough back that he doesn’t cop a backhand. Just… be nice to him.”
“La-la-la-la-la.” He plugs one ear and smiles when I laugh and jump to tug it away. “I said no. I will not entertain this talk.”
“He’s my best friend. We knew this was coming.”
“We did?” Comically wide-eyed, he looks down to me. “Did we? Because I sure as hell feel blindsided.”
“That I like a boy?”
“No! That you grew up. I didn’t say this was okay. Now the world wants me to drop you off in a city so fucking far away from home, and expect me to be the heavy dude when you’re begging me to let you come home. It’s literally against every cell in my body to tell you no. It’s my job to protect you and keep you close, and here I am saying you can’t come home. It’s bullshit.” He throws a hand up. “I haven’t felt this kind of heartbreak since that first time your mom stood me up.”
I chuckle and barely pay attention to my feet as we step up onto the sidewalk. “The night she kicked you in the you-know-what, and I puked all over you?” I smile. “That was a fun time.”
“I’d trade this for that in a heartbeat.” He turns serious. “Give me that baby girl back, puke and all. Because every second that moves on my watch is killing me. Tonight, I go home to my bed, and for the first time in a long time, you won’t be down the hall.” He grabs my spare hand and places it, open palmed, over his heart. “You feel that? That’s my heart breaking.”
“Biggie…”
“Just… no matter how this goes, no matter who you meet, or whatever classes make you mad or sad or frustrated, know that you’re loved. Nothing is as bad as it seems, because I love you so fucking much, baby. I will always love you.”
“You’re gonna make me cry.” I bury my face against his chest and sigh. “You’re killin’ me, Smalls.”
He gives a humorless chuckle and presses a long, noisy kiss to my forehead. “Funny, I’ve said that a million times in my life. You can come home whenever you want, okay? I will bankrupt my life if that’s what it takes to buy you as many flights as you need. If you call and say you need to come back for the weekend, I’ll make it happen, no questions asked. But in exchange, I need you to give this a real try first. Get in, meet people, learn stuff. You’re my brave girl. You’re strong. These punks here are nothing to be afraid of.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He pulls back. “You promise to try?”
I nod. “I promise to do my best. I won’t come home unless it’s really important.”
“Or a holiday,” he amends. “Holidays are free game. You bring your ass home and plant it on the couch, and I’ll bring you all the cawfee you can ask for.”
“Man after my heart,” I laugh. “First d
ay back home, you owe me a breakfast date. I don’t care about the floozy in your bed. For that hour, I’m your girl.”
Finally, he lets out a loud laugh as we push through the restaurant door. “That floozy is your mom, but… yeah, okay.” He smiles when I narrow my eyes. “For that hour, she’s just a cheap floozy. I’ve got you, Smalls. Promise.”
I stand at my closed dorm door after dinner and lift a hand with uncertainty. Do I knock? Do I not? Do I have to talk to my new roommate?
I grit my teeth, because before leaving my hometown, I was never the girl who felt uncomfortable or nervous, but now I’m on a college campus almost as big as my whole town, and there’s a strange chick that I’m expected to live with for… I frown. One year? All four? I have no clue.
The hallways are pterodactyl-screech loud, with other people my age running around like this is their first ever taste of freedom, and they have no clue how to handle themselves. They make me think of children being let loose in a candy store. But that candy store also has games with flashing lights and ringing bells. And in between each candy display is a clown, juggling chainsaws and farting rainbows.
There’s just too much to do, too much to look at, so these kids who were considered the grownups of their high schools just last semester, now act like toddlers on a sugar high.
I’ve spent my entire life in the spotlight at world title fights, ringside with my cousins and aunts, or better yet, cornerman for my Uncle Jack, since he promised me a place on his team way back when I was a child. There are certain perks to being the oldest of the new wave of children. I might be alone now, but I had years of undivided attention among all of the adults to the point that now, despite having dozens of cousins, I know I own a soft spot in every adult’s heart.
Bean and I were the beginning of a whole new world for our family, so I guess with the good that I lapped up for those years, I now have to take the bad and open the fucking door.
I clutch my phone in my left hand and squeeze so tight I worry it might snap. Ben is right there. He’s literally a single phone call away, but at some point soon, I need to learn how to stand on my own. So I think of him, but I don’t make the call.
I bolster my bravery and turn the door handle with slow movements, since it’s almost eight. I mean, Clair might be asleep. Or out.
Or fucking someone in her bed. I stop with the door wide open and stare as a bare back moves beneath her sheets. “What the actual fu–”
“Oh my god!” Clair pokes her head around the man – the boy? – she’s in bed with, and when our eyes meet, her body jerks as she slaps at his shoulders. “Oh my god! Stop. Shit.”
“I’m so sorry.” I bring my hands up to cover my eyes and act like the toddler I accused everyone in the hall of being. “Jesus, I’m sorry, Clair.”
I turn away when I move my hands and the man’s butt doesn’t stop moving. He’s taking what he wants, and when Clair’s eyes roll into the back of her head, I rush straight back into the hall and slam the door on the way out.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Did I really just… Did that really…?”
I walk laps of the hall and talk myself down from a panic attack I’m confused about.
I mean, why am I freaking?
Why does it matter that my roommate is having sex?
Why is it any of my business?
“It’s not.” I say it out loud, as though that’ll help convince me. “It’s none of my business.”
I’m not a prude. I mean, I don’t think I am. I’m a virgin, and I had my first ever kiss just over twenty-four hours ago. But I’m not a prude. I know people who kiss. In fact, I’ve seen a billion kisses around my home, so it’s not like I’m a total newb. And then there was the time I walked in on my Uncle Jack and Aunt Britt.
I didn’t freak out as much that time as I am now.
I was fourteen, and my aunt and uncle were making a baby… quite literally, if my faulty math is reasonably accurate. But that was their home, and they were married. I was the intruder, and not twenty minutes later, my uncle came down and joined me at the kitchen counter. He poured me a cup of hot chocolate and gave me a talk like none other.
He loves her, they’re married, and what they were doing was okay.
But Clair isn’t married, and the home she’s doing it in is my home too.
“Oh my God.”
I lift my phone and swipe the screen open. I find Ben’s name, but calling him about sex seems so… wow. Not us. But I can’t call Biggie. I suppose I could call my Mom, but they’re in the air anyway. So that leaves Aunt Tink, and something tells me she’ll ask me what the guy looks like, and not if what they were doing is safe.
“Shit.” I thrust a hand into my hair as I walk and scroll my phone in a desperate search for someone to call. “Bean. I can call Bean.” I type in ‘B,’ but before I hit her name, I hit what feels like a brick wall and slam back to my ass so hard that I’m certain I chip my tailbone.
“Ah, fuck!”
“Oh, shit,” a masculine voice hovers over me. “I’m so sorry. Here.”
A hand enters my peripherals. Large, callused, but that’s not what makes me pause. My ass aches, and my wrist zings with pain because I threw it down to catch my weight, but my eyes focus on scarred knuckles. They’re pink, and the first knuckle, the pointer finger, actually bleeds.
For a regular chick, that would probably be gross. But for me, it brings my eyes up.
“You’ve been fighting.”
Wide, green eyes stop on mine and take stock of my… well, everything. My hair draws eyes. It’s inevitable. My hair is several feet long, but springs up in tight curls that stop around my shoulder blades and frame my face. I have a lot of hair.
Once you get past the hair, people tend to notice my eyes. They’re bright blue. Like, abnormally bright, and then after that, people notice I have muscle. Not a lot, it’s not like I look like a female bodybuilder. But enough to let people know I grew up in a gym. Add my Rollin tank, and it takes people a second to focus.
“Hm?” His lips twitch into a smile the longer I remain down and refuse his hand. “Come again?”
“You’ve been fighting.” I brush his hand aside and climb to my feet with a groan.
It takes until I pat my thighs to realize my hand is empty, and then a panic-filled spin for me to locate my phone on the floor on the opposite side of the wide hall. People step on it. They kick it as they move, but I’m not the idiot who cries and begs people to be more considerate.
I dive for it, and stop barely short of sack-whacking some asshole who doesn’t move aside for me, and instead almost knees me in the face. I pick the device up and say a little prayer before I turn it over.
“Don’t be broken. Don’t be broken. Please don’t be broken.” I flip it over, and give a double-sized smile when I find it in one piece, and see a text from Ben, waiting for me to call him.
“Girl?” The guy that knocked me down zooms through the bustling crowd and stops close enough that his wide arm touches my chest.
Stunned, I stare into his eyes and take a large, deliberate step back.
“I’m sorry for knocking you down.” He extends a hand again. “Truly. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I’m okay.”
His hand remains extended. “And your phone?”
“It’s fine. Didn’t break.”
“I’m Reid. And my arm is getting sore while I wait for you to accept my apology.”
I scoff and take another step back. “Your arm is not getting sore. You work out. You’re fine. I also have a boyfriend, so…” I turn away, only to be yanked back with a hand on my shoulder so I come eye-to-eye with green orbs. He’s taller than me by several inches. He’s about Ben’s height and width, which only lends to my suspicions that Reid is a fighter, so to be on my level, he leans down and stares with firmed lips.
He has gold flecks in his green eyes. Gold, like the ground before a gold rush. “Girl, you didn’t tell me your name.”
“Curls! I knocked you on your ass and almost broke your phone. Let me apologize. Geez.”
“You’re forgiven. Now you can move on with your life without the guilt that you knocked a girl to her ass.” I turn away and hit dial. Ben is who I need. Not some oversized dude that thinks girls should smile at them just because.
“Hey there.” Ben’s voice slides through my ear and settles somewhere in the region of my heart.
“Hey.” I hurry away from Reid and push through the doors at the end of my hall. Down one flight of stairs and through another heavy door, I emerge outside so the stars just blinking on help calm me in a way I’m not sure I can explain. “Jesus. It’s good to hear your voice. You absolutely will not believe my night.”
“Everything okay?” His voice pauses on a crackle, as though he’s searching for the meaning behind my words. “You’re safe?”
“Yeah. I just came outside. I can’t take it in there. Everything is so crowded and gross. What are you doing?”
“Well.” I hear the soft sounds of a TV in his background, now that I’ve removed myself from the noise of the halls, but then I hear a sliding door and now… nothing. “I was inside watching TV with Livi, but now I’m sitting outside on the back deck.”
“You’re outside?” I sit on a picnic bench about fifty feet from the dorm doors and look up at the sky. “Quick. Look up.”
I hear him move. His breath whispering straight into my ear. “Okay. I’m lying on the grass and looking up. What am I seeing?”
“The exact same sky as me,” I sigh. There are a few people out here, but their numbers are merely in the tens, and not the hundreds or thousands, so I shuffle my butt to the very edge of the picnic table and lay back just like him. “Now we’re looking at the exact same stars, and if I close my eyes, I can pretend you’re right here next to me.”